


A Friend in the Dark

by ishtarelisheba



Series: Better to Face the Bullets 'verse [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, young Rumple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-01 14:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10191983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: A peek into Rummond’s early childhood, including an awful incident with his father and how he and Dove became friends. A BtFtB one-shot.





	

It was the sharp sound of a slap at almost the same instant that a child cried out in pain that stopped Heddwyn Dove in the hallway. He frowned, stopping just next to the doorframe, and listened.

“D’ye see what ye’ve done now? D’ye ken how much business ye just lost me?” his employer bellowed.

Terrified and desperate, the man’s son gasped, “Don’t, Papa! Please don’t!”

“Who in the hell d’ye think ye are?” Another slap, this one more muffled. “Never tell me ‘don’t’ anythin’! I’ll not have a useless little worm the likes of you tellin’ _me_ what not to do!”

There was a collision, the sound of small things falling, and another cry - the boy had been knocked into something.

“The money ye’ve lost me today, I could sell ye and not make up for it.” There was a stretch of silence heavy with the child’s smothered sobs. “God, I’ll never be free of ye, will I?”

Dove stepped into the room. It made his teeth grind together to watch and be unable to knock the elder Gold on his ass. He could have stepped in, but it would mean he’d lose his first position and likely never find another. Inserting oneself into an employer’s affairs was not an addition to a résumé that made one hirable.

Malcolm Gold and his son had been moved in for perhaps a fortnight, and Dove had been hired for half of that. While he had seen how domineering and critical the man was toward his son, this was the first time he’d witnessed such violence.

“I’ll take him upstairs and out of sight, shall I?” Dove offered, but his employer acted as though he’d heard nothing. 

“Ye’ll no be happy ’til ye’ve ruined me,” Malcolm seethed viciously, bending to loom over the little boy. 

The child had curled into the corner of the bookshelf and wall, making himself as small as possible. His hands covered his ears in an attempt to protect himself. It didn’t stop Malcolm from giving him another ringing slap, and the boy’s head hit the wall. Dove clenched his fists.

“Rather see me back in that hovel, wouldnae ye? Livin’ in the same room with naught but the smell of piss and _you.”_ He grabbed the boy by the back of his shirt collar, yanking him up from the floor so forcefully that the child made a choked sound. “Well, I’m done with it. I’m done with ye. Ye can rot for all I care, ye worthless waste of air.”

Malcolm dragged the boy right past Dove, small feet hardly touching the floor as his father stalked down the hallway and out to the front doors. “Shut yer gob. I don’t give a fuck for yer tears.”

Dove followed, standing back near the stairs as Malcolm quite literally threw the boy out onto the doorstep and slammed the door before sauntering back down to the study and his not inconsiderable collection of booze. Expensive booze, but in Malcolm Gold’s hands, booze nonetheless.

After a moment to make certain that his employer was well on his way to a night of drunken oblivion, Dove went to the back of the house. He took an umbrella from the pantry and went out through the kitchen door, walking around to the front. The boy - Rummond, he was called - sat beneath the overhang in an attempt to keep out of the blowing rain, knees pulled tight to his chest and sobbing his heart out. He was soaked right to his bones.

Dove folded himself into a crouch down next to the child, holding the umbrella over him. “Come on, _bach,”_ he said loudly enough to be heard over the rain. “Let’s get you inside.”

It took a few seconds, and the boy refused the hand that Dove offered, but he stood and trailed along back around to the kitchen door. He didn’t walk beneath the shelter of the umbrella, but it wasn’t as though he could get any wetter, Dove decided.

Dove set the cook’s wooden stool over by the stove and motioned Rummond toward it. The oven was still burning, and the room was toasty warm. 

Malcolm Gold had hired him for the task of watching the boy. ‘Watching’ not in a sense of looking after or taking care of - that much had been made clear to him - but one of threat and intimidation. It wasn’t unexpected, such a job description. Dove was well aware that he was rather a daunting mountain of a man despite being a good bit shy of twenty. He’d expected some hateful, ungrateful snipe of a boy, judging by Malcolm’s demands. Being then faced with such a reserved and broken child had thrown him for several loops.

Head ducked and hair dripping, Rummond’s small hands wrung in his lap. A puddle had already begun to gather on the floor beneath him. His bottom lip bled from a split near its center, mixed with rainwater running down his chin, and the heels of his hands had been scraped up and bloodied by the stone step. One trouser knee was torn open, fabric stained with blood there, as well. Malcolm had done a fine job of battering the boy.

“In some shape, aren’t we?” Dove said quietly. “Stay just there by the stove.”

He fetched a cloth out of the drawer and a bowl down from the cupboard before going back to pour hot water from the kettle in to soak it. Kneeling down in front of the boy, he squeezed the water from the cloth and began to dab the blood carefully back up Rummond’s chin, then away from the cut in his lip. The child shivered fit to whip cream.

“You need to get out of those wet clothes, don’t you?” Dove set the bowl down and stood, taking a few pieces of wood from the basket between the counter and oven, putting them in to increase the fire and make the kitchen warmer. When he turned back, Rummond looked as if he were trying to make himself smaller. It was an awkward sight, perched on the stool as he was.

“I’ll not harm you,” Dove promised, leveling a look at the little boy. “Not ever.”

Rummond appeared doubtful. It wasn’t as though Dove could blame him for it.

“Go on, you’ll catch your death if you stay in wet clothes, won’t you,” he encouraged. “I’ll find you a cover. You’ll be warm and dry before you know it.”

Dove went off to fetch a blanket from the servants’ cupboards. It was far from fancy, but it was good and warm, and more than big enough to envelop a child. 

The boy had stripped down to his smalls when Dove returned, his clothing in a soppy little pile next to the him. He stood in the puddle he’d dripped. Dove wrapped the blanket snug about Rummond and lifted him back onto the stool before taking the wet clothes to add to the next day’s laundry.

“I interrupted,” Rummond murmured. He licked his lip and winced. “Shouldn’t’ve. I ken better than to.”

Dove took one of the boy’s hands and submerged it in the bowl of now warm water. Rummond flinched and grimaced, but he made no sound. “I don’t see where that means he should be mistreating you, do I.”

“Papa was talking to that man ’at came by about some old lady’s belongings an’ I asked what he needed that many fur coats for.” Rummond scuffed his bare toes against the stool’s rung, his lip trembling. His voice grew thin. “Didnae ken he’d get sae angry about it…”

There were entirely too many shadows in the boy’s eyes for a child of ten. Malcolm Gold needed a strong pair of hands wrapped around his neck, was what he needed, and Dove’s hands itched to do the squeezing.

He washed Rummond’s hands, pausing for a moment each time the little boy’s eyes clenched shut at the pain. The scrapes didn’t look quite so severe without blood and dirt in them. Dove folded one side of the blanket over, uncovering Rummond’s right leg.

“Oh, that’s a bad knee, isn’t it,” Dove tutted. He started work on it, frowning as Rummond hissed with the first touch. “I’m sorry. Does need to be cleaned, though.”

He went slowly with the knee, dabbing dirt away more carefully and running water from the cloth over it, as he couldn’t stick it in the bowl.

 _“Dyna ti bach,”_ he said as he finished and stood, gently patting the side of the boy’s head.

Rummond flinched, and Dove felt another bit of a murderous urge toward the boy’s sire. He bent Rummond’s head forward and had a look at the spot that had met the wall. There was no blood, but there would likely be a bruise.

“Are you hungry?” Dove asked.

It took a moment, but Rummond gave a nod and a shy glance up.

“How about a bit of supper?” Dove suggested, going about it without waiting for another answer.

He poured a bit of milk into a boiler and set it on the stovetop to heat. Bringing out the bread, then a piece of cheese and covered slab of ham from the icebox, he sliced enough for a decent sandwich. He put it together and into a pan, and took it over to set in the oven for a moment.

Rummond gave him a long, wary look. “Why’re ye bein’ nice to me?”

“You deserve having people to be nice to you,” Dove told him. “Doesn’t seem you have many.”

“Mr. Dove?” one of the maids said from the kitchen door.

With a quick look over, he replied, “I’ll be there now, in a minute.”

“Himself is looking for you,” the maid relayed.

Dove narrowed his eyes. “Oh, is he? He can wait then, can’t he.”

The maid left and Dove took the sandwich from the oven, upturning it onto a plate. Setting it on the counter, he turned to Rummond and lifted the boy to sit on the counter next to it. “Here we go.”

Rummond began eating - tentatively at first, then with more gusto. He tore pieces from the sandwich, poking them into his mouth one after another. Dove poured the steaming milk from the boiler into a cup and set it next to the boy, as well.

“It’s like this, it is. Your father hasn’t a right to treat you as he does, does he. None at all,” Dove told him, leaning on the counter. “I know you can’t precisely help anything he’s doing. But you need to know that. He hasn’t a right and you don’t deserve it.”

Rummond darted out, wrapping his arms around Dove’s neck. He held on tight. Dove felt the boy begin to shake again - this time not from cold. It hurt Dove’s heart, the desperation of it. He wondered of the last time the boy had felt contact that wasn’t meant to inflict pain.

“It’s all right,” he said. It wasn’t, not truly, but he had no idea what else he might say in comfort.

“I didnae mean to,” Rummond said, sniffling.

“You did nothing wrong.”

“I lost Papa his business! He said!”

“Now, I highly doubt that.” Dove patted the boy’s back. “Business such as he’s into won’t be driven off by a child’s question, will it.”

Rummond didn’t answer. After a few more moments, he let go and sat back, still sniffling quietly.

“How do you feel about going to bed?” Dove asked as Rummond poked the last bit of sandwich into his mouth.

Rummond nodded, and Dove was glad to see that he looked sleepy. Dove helped him down from the counter, and Rummond grabbed his hand. 

He wished that he could tell Rummond that he was safe, that he could protect him. That he could keep Malcolm from causing him any further harm. He feared the most he could accomplish was being present for the boy after his father got hold of him. It wasn’t much, but Dove hoped that it could be enough.


End file.
